


no profit for a wise man (nothing sweet to see)

by smokeynights



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (He Just Doesn’t Know It Yet), Botticelli’s Fortitude, Gratuitous Use of Metaphor, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hannibal is dramatic, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Mild Gore, Not Beta Read, Oedipus the King References, Pre-Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Season/Series 02, Someone Help Will Graham, Sylvia Plath References, Symbolism, We Die Like Men, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 01:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17613218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokeynights/pseuds/smokeynights
Summary: Will struggles with his empathy. Hannibal struggles with his desires.





	no profit for a wise man (nothing sweet to see)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first venture into writing for the Fannibals, so I hope I did this spectacular show some justice! Any feedback is welcome and appreciated.

‘Am I boring you, Will?’

‘Never, Dr. Lecter.’

A hum. ‘I trust you have been told that sarcasm is the lowest form of humour. It’s why I delight in it so. No one seems to expect it.’

‘I can’t imagine why,’ muttered Will, hands shoved into his pockets as he examined Hannibal’s shelves. To keep them from fidgeting, Hannibal suspected, but he humoured Will and instead took a seat behind his desk. He would sketch until Will wanted to speak. It had come to his attention that Will was more inclined to show vulnerability when Hannibal was in the thralls of something more domestic, dare he say personal; drawing, cooking, even cleaning. The thought brought a smile to Hannibal’s eyes.

The blank sheet of paper upon the desk slowly took shape, transporting Hannibal to another life far, far away from the dregs of Baltimore. To Florence, in all its delicate architecture and vibrant nightlife, where the breeze would blow the soft fabric of Hannibal’s suit pants against his legs in a way that made him shiver. The faint outline of a large throne came to life with calculated pencil strokes, and on the throne sat the disinterested outline of a body. Flashes of red appeared before Hannibal’s imagination, the soft robe a beautiful contrast to the glimmer of armour he could picture. Beneath the desk, Hannibal’s right leg twitched.

‘I wonder if there isn’t more to this life.’

A blink. Back to the present, and Will stood closer to the desk, simply observing. Hannibal placed the pencil down with gentle fingers and turned, legs splayed only slightly as he watched the column of Will’s throat work.

‘I wonder-‘ Will swallowed. ‘-if maybe it’s not too late for me.’

‘A great question,’ Hannibal allowed. ‘Though one I’m afraid I cannot answer.’

Will would look beautiful draped in red, Hannibal mused. The bruising beneath his eyes, the plumpness of his lips, his lean figure. Will deserved to be seated upon a throne.

‘There’s more to life than a small house in the middle of nowhere, Wolf Trap, where your only friends are your dogs,’ said Will. ‘Isn’t there?’

‘Is a life of solitude not what you are after, Will?’

‘The more bodies that pile up, the less solitude appeals to me.’

‘You are afraid of these bodies?’ Hannibal stared at him from beneath straight eyelashes. ‘Or what these bodies mean for you?’

Will refused to look Hannibal in the eyes, but a veined hand dragged through his curls and that was confirmation enough. Will’s face was built to express and emote and Hannibal’s heart sang at its troubles. Will struggled to draw a veil over his anguish, his rage and the urges which Hannibal had only glimpsed in the past but knows without a doubt are boiling beneath the surface.

‘Why should I live only to see death? It’s inescapable. I can’t hide from it, and I’m getting tired of running.’

Hannibal sucked in a breath. What a sight Will would make upon a throne, porcelain pale skin marred by fierce droplets of red and the weary blue beneath his eyes. Hannibal’s burning heart would fit perfectly in Will’s open palms.

‘Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that’s wise,’ quoted Hannibal. ‘There is a level of irony there, I will admit.’

Will blew out a frustrated breath. ‘I’m glad you find this amusing.’

‘It is amusing to see how little faith you have in yourself, Will. You are tenacious and strong despite hardship. You must not be so shaken that you lose a core part of your identity.’

‘And what is it you recommend, Dr. Lecter?’ Will gripped the edge of Hannibal’s desk, spine curved in order to lean over its surface and look him in the eye.

‘A break would not do you any harm, Special Agent Graham.’ Will smirked at that. ‘I simply ask, as your friend, that you return.’

Hannibal’s ‘ _to me_ ’ went unsaid, but hung oppressively in the air. He could almost see its waves before his eyes, fizzling and cracking with the heat between them. A blink. Will sat, unattainable and disinterested on his throne built of flesh and bone. Skin stained red like brush strokes, adorned with the razor-sharp edge of iron plates. A beating, heaving, burning heart lay in his palms. Will ate it.

Hannibal trembled back to himself, body alight with unbridled desire. Will’s eyes were softer than they had been.

‘I lift my lids and all is born again,’ he murmured. Hannibal had him pinned as more Bukowski than Plath. The chasm within his chest cracked open, the absence of a pumping organ ran seemingly as deep as Hannibal’s admiration for the blown pupils staring back at him.

Will could snap his neck from his throne of flesh and bone. Hannibal’s heart would be the point of the vast pyramid. It would be his blood pouring like heavy rain. Kneeling at Will’s ghostly feet, he would feel blessed to look upon such destruction. Will Graham’s devastation would be timeless, gut-wrenching in its elegance and resplendent, virile like its creator. A cursed beauty it would be. One could never get too close lest they become the very pig sent for the slaughter.

It would not be such a terrible thing, Hannibal mused, for Joyous Love had already visited, and there he sat wrapped in a veil beneath the stars, simply waiting for the day Will drapes himself in red and eats his heart.

Hannibal’s throat clicked. ‘I think I made you up inside my head.’

**Author's Note:**

> Botticelli’s ‘Fortitude’ is the art referenced throughout. I know next to nothing about art; all information was found through its Wikipedia article.
> 
> Two quotes from Sophocles’ tragedy, ‘Oedipus the King’, inspired the creation of this fic. One is directly quoted by Hannibal - “Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that’s wise!” - and the other revolves around Will’s musings: “Why should I see whose vision showed me nothing sweet to see?”
> 
> Dante's first sonnet from “La Vita Nuova” is also referenced throughout, solely for selfish reasons (c’mon, who DOESN’T think of that scene every day?).
> 
> Finally, two lines from Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song” are quoted by both Will and Hannibal at the end.


End file.
